CHATTEL MORTGAGES.-There has been a steady decrease in the number of chattel mortgages since 1895. Their amount also decreased for the four years 1896 to 1899, but the year 1900 reports an increase of above $600,000. The number on record on December 31, 1900, was 17,321, their amount being $11,669,806. Of these 8,440, amounting to $3,110,543, were against farmers. DECISIONS OF COURTS AFFECTING LABOR. [This subject, begun in Bulletin No. 2, has been continued in successive issues. All material parts of the decisions are reproduced in the words of the courts, indicated when short by quotation marks, and when long by being printed solid. In order to save space, matter needed simply by way of explanation is given in the words of the editorial reviser.] DECISIONS UNDER STATUTORY LAW. EIGHT-HOUR LAW--MUNICIPAL CORPORATIONS-PAVING STREETSState v. Atkin, Supreme Court of Kansas, 67 Pacific Reporter, page 519.-W. W. Atkin was convicted in the district court of Wyandotte County of a violation of what is known as the "eight-hour law” of Kansas, and appealed. This law provides "That eight hours shall constitute a day's work for all laborers, workmen, mechanics or other persons now employed, or who may hereafter be employed by or on behalf of the State of Kansas, or by or on behalf of any county, city, township, or other municipality of said State, *." Contracts made "by or on behalf of the State of Kansas, or by or on behalf of any county, city, township, or other municipality of said State," come under the same rule of law. * * Atkin had a contract for the paving of a public street of Kansas City, Kans., a city of the first class, and had permitted a common laborer engaged in this work to work more than eight hours per day. The constitutionality of this law had been determined in the case, in re Dalton, 61 Kans., 257, 59 Pac., 336, 47 L. R. A., 380 (see Bulletin of the Department of Labor, No. 28, p. 610). The only question, therefore, was whether the city is such an agency of the State in doing the work contracted for as to bring the case within the principle of the case above mentioned. In the course of his remarks, in which he sustained the decision of the court below, Judge Smith, who delivered the opinion of the court, said: The law which appellant [Atkin] violated must have its application in the light of the fact that municipal corporations are the creatures of the State. The legislature gives them being. They let contracts for the improvement of streets under express authorization of the legislature, and could not do so in the absence of such authority. It is and always has been the duty of the State to lay out and improve highways of travel. The city in contracting to pave Quindaro boulevard, exercised delegated authority, and acted as an agent for the State. If the State had been doing this work, it can not be denied that it might, at its pleasure, have given the current rate of per diem wages in the city for eight hours' work. This is the principle of the Dalton case. The judgment of the court below will be affirmed. EIGHT-HOUR LAW-PAYMENT OF DEPUTY SHERIFFS-CONSTRUCTION OF STATUTE-Christian County v. Merrigan, Supreme Court of Illinois, 61 Northeastern Reporter, page 479.—Suit was brought by Lawrence Merrigan against the county of Christian of the State of Illinois to recover compensation for services, etc., while he was acting as a special deputy sheriff during the progress of a strike at Pana, in said county, in 1898. The first count of his declaration alleged the time of his service to have been one hundred and twenty-four days and the second count one hundred and fifty days of eight hours each. Each count alleged that he was entitled under a statute of the State to compensation at the rate of $2 per day. In the trial court a judgment was rendered in his favor under the first count, and upon appeal to the appellate court of the third district of Illinois this judgment was affirmed. The county then appealed the case to the supreme court of Illinois, which rendered its decision October 24, 1901, and affirmed the judgments of the lower courts. Merrigan himself appealed on the ground that the judgment in his favor should have been rendered under the second count of his declaration, which claimed compensation for one hundred and fifty days of eight hours each. From the standpoint of labor this is the only interesting point in the case and the grounds of the plaintiff's appeal, as well as the reasons for the decision of the supreme court denying it, are set forth in the opinion of the court, delivered by Judge Carter, who used the following language: Appellee [Merrigan] has assigned cross errors, and contends that the act making eight hours a legal day's work (Hurd's Rev. St. 1899, p. 840) applies, and that he should have been permitted to recover, under the second count, for one hundred and fifty days of eight hours each; that is, that the plaintiff should have been permitted to divide the days into periods of eight hours when he was engaged in his duties as deputy, and thus permitted to recover, under the statute, for as many days as there were periods of eight hours' actual service. This point was also correctly decided below. We agree with the appellate court in its holding that the statute has no application to cases of this kind (Phillips v. Christian County, 87 Ill. App. 481), but that it is confined to mechanical trades, arts, and employments, and other cases of labor and services of like character, and does not embrace services of an official character. Moreover, if the eighthour statute applied, appellee performed the services required of him each day without any agreement (even if there could be such agreement in such a case) that he should be paid for extra time. In the absence. of such an agreement or contract no recovery could be had for extra time employed over eight hours during the same day. We are of the opinion that the per diem required by the statute to be paid for the time actually employed was only for one day in each twenty-four hours. EMPLOYERS' LIABILITY-EMPLOYMENT OF CHILDREN-NEGLIGENCEDAMAGES Ornamental Iron and Wire Co. v. Green, Supreme Court of Tennessee, 65 Southwestern Reporter, page 399.-Luther Green, a minor, sued by his next friend to recover damages for an injury received while in the service of the above-named company. At the time of the injury, which resulted in the amputation of a leg, Green was under 12 years of age. Green claimed to have received the injury while going to a yard belonging to the company on an errand for his superior, and that while passing certain heavy panels of fence placed there by the company he stumbled against the panels so that they fell on him, causing the hurt complained of. On the other hand, the company maintained that he was in the yard without orders, and while carelessly playing with the panels of fence pulled them over upon himself and was thus injured. Damages were awarded in the circuit court of Hamilton County to the amount of $3,000. The defendant thereupon appealed to the supreme court, which affirmed the judgment of the lower court. The following is quoted from the remarks of Judge Beard, who delivered the opinion of the court: * or * * By section 1, C. 159, acts 1893 (Shannon's Code, sec. 4434), it is provided that it shall be unlawful for any proprietor, foreman, owner, other person to employ any child, less than 12 years of age, in any workshop, mill, factory, or mine in this State; while section 3 of the act (Shannon's Code, sec. 4436) provides that any proprietor, foreman, or owner "employing a child less than twelve years of age shall be guilty of a misdemeanor." An act similar to this was considered in Queen v. Iron Co., 95 Tenn. 458, 32 S. W. 460, 30 L. R. A. 82, 49 Am. St. Rep. 935. In that case it was held that the employment of an infant under 12 years of age, in violation of a statute forbidding such employment, and declaring it a misdemeanor, constitutes per se such negligence as makes the employer liable for all injuries sustained by the infant in the course of his employment. This holding was made after a careful examination of the authorities, and we see no reason to depart from it. The very employment is a violation of the statute, and every injury that results therefrom is actionable. In the case presented by the plaintiff below, as well as in that adduced by the defendant company, the connection between the employment and the injury is that of cause and effect, and brings the complaint within the operation of the statute. It is further insisted that the verdict is excessive. We are unable to say that a verdict against the wrongdoer of $3,000, in favor of a boy who, before he reaches the age of 12 years, loses a leg, is the result of caprice, prejudice, or corruption on the part of the jury. This being so, we are not authorized to disturb it. EMPLOYERS' LIABILITY-NEGLIGENCE-ASSUMPTION OF RISK BY EMPLOYEE Moon-Anchor Consolidated Gold Mines, Limited, v. Hopkins, United States Circuit Court of Appeals, Eighth Circuit, 111 Federal Reporter, page 298.—In this case the plaintiff, Mary A. Hopkins, brought suit to recover damages, under the statute of Colorado, for the death of her son, Phineas Hopkins. The above-named company, in whose employ Hopkins was at the time of his death, had been engaged in excavating a chamber in its mine, and, after the proper size had been excavated except as to height, the only support that had been left for the roof was blown out on the 18th of March. Rock then fell in large quantities and continued to fall from time to time. Workmen were set about the placing of timbers to support the roof, removing the fallen rock as they advanced. Hopkins was 20 years of age, not an experienced miner, and was engaged in operating a car for the removal of the loose rock. The workmen were directed not to go beyond the protection of the timbers, and were furnished with longhandled hooks with which to pull out the rock without exposing themselves. While thus engaged Hopkins was instantly killed by a piece of rock which fell from above outside the timbers, and, striking on a pile of rock, was deflected under the timbers to where he was standing. It was brought out at the trial court that the progress in excavation without the provision of timbering and the blowing out of the supporting pillar before supporting structures were put in had been done in spite of warnings by the head timberman and a shift boss. The court held, however, that the method of making the original excavation was not the proximate or actuating cause of the death of the plaintiff's son; and that if the evidence showed reasonable care and diligence in its later proceedings for clearing and timbering the room, and that Hopkins knew or might reasonably have known the nature of the undertaking, then he must be held to have assumed the increased hazards incident to putting the room in a reasonably safe condition. The jury, however, brought in a verdict of damages for the plaintiff, and the company appealed. Judges Sanborn and Adams concurred in reversing the judgment and remanded the cause with directions to grant a new trial, Judge Thayer dissenting. In announcing the majority opinion, Judge Adams said, in part: The measure of duty and obligation of a master to his servant, when the work voluntarily undertaken by the servant consists in making a dangerous place safe, is materially changed from that prevailing under the general rule. It may be that negligence in making the original excavation occasioned the new risks and hazards to which plaintiff's son voluntarily subjected himself, but it can not, in our opinion, be true that the first-mentioned negligence, remote not only in time but in connection with the injury, was the actuating cause, when it appears. that the deceased of his own free will determined to cope with these risks and hazards, and for a price satisfactory to him assumed the liability incident to them. In this, his own voluntary conduct, is found the intervening proximate and responsible cause of his injury. The deceased, by voluntarily engaging in the work of making a dangerous place safe, assumed all the risks attending it which were known to him, or which by the exercise of ordinary care and foresight might have been known to him. |